Hi
by dontchasethesheep
Summary: Knox finally meets someone who enjoys life as he does. Trouble is, she works in the office across the street and he doesn't even know her name.


This is for got-some-diem-to-carpe on tumblr for the DPS Secret Santa. They requested something Knox x Chris, so I did my best. ** This fic is unbetaed and written in a single day, so I apologize for the unavoidable spelling/grammar errors, characterization/plot flaws, etc. **No, seriously, please don't except too much from this story.

Disclaimer:Don't own anything you recognize (I even ripped the name of the cafe from Ted and Barney's bar on HIMYM)

* * *

Knox had one of those boring lives (dull, paper-pushing job, all alone in his apartment, same vitamins with the same cereal and juice in the morning) but he was pretty okay with it. He firmly believed that nothing was boring if you injected fun into it. Unfortunately, nobody at the office agreed with him so he spent his office days hoping that someone equally fun would transfer to the office. And eventually, it happened. The only problem is, they transferred to the office across the street.

* * *

Knox was sitting at his desk, staring blankly at the stacks of paperwork in front of him. Each stack had a sticky note on it with memos like 'due on Monday' and 'send to Kaitlyn' written on them, but for the moment, Knox had chosen to ignore them in favour of looking at the office across the street. He liked watching the pigeons that congregated there. He had affectionately named them Burt, Grace, Julianna, Pippy, Waldo, and Jalapeño, even though he doubted that they were the same five or six pigeons every day.

One of them - Burt, Knox decided - hopped along the ledge to the office directly across from Knox's, bringing his attention to the occupant inside. She looked his age, taking a series of potted plants from a box and placing them in a row on the windowsill. She was most certainly new to the office, because the room was previously occupied by an extremely overweight man with a permanent scowl. Knox had nicknamed him Grumpy, and he wasn't overly fond of him. Luckily, the new girl looked nothing like Grumpy. She was obviously pretty in the way that fashion magazines were telling girls to look like, but that wasn't really what attracted Knox to her. It was when she looked up briefly and smiled at the pigeon that Knox had one of those moments he had only seen in bad movies. One of those moments when the protagonist sees the love interest and the music swells and the love interest suddenly goes kind of slow motion and light up like an angel and the protagonist has a realization that that was the person they were going to marry some day.

Knox almost cringed at his own corniness and reprimanded himself: _No, don't even think of falling in love with a girl you're never going to meet. Only in movies, Overstreet. _

And in typical Knox style, Knox argued back with himself. _It's not just that she's pretty, it's that she smiled at Burt. Who smiles at pigeons except for me? We're meant to be. _

_You are a helpless idiot_, he told himself.

_I know. _

* * *

So Knox continued to take his vitamins every morning with his cereal and his orange juice, but when he walked into the office, he felt slightly lighter (_you are a stupid man_, he insisted). He allowed his eyes to flicker to the office across the street and was only slightly disappointed that it was empty. He forced himself to keep his eye on his work until lunchtime, when he looked up and the girl was standing at the window again, watering each plant carefully. Knox felt himself staring and blinked hard. When he opened his eyes again, he made eye contact with the girl. Awkwardly, he waved a little. The girl smiled and waved back, and Knox could barely contain his glee.

_She waved back_, he thought.

_Because she's polite_, he snapped.

_Whatever_, Knox replied.

He returned to his work and ripped through it in record time.

* * *

It's not like Knox is spying, because that would definitely fall under the 'creepy' category, but he can't help that The Girl From Across the Street's office is right in line with his office window. Unlike the last guy who worked there, The Girl doesn't keep the blinds down all day. And every day, Knox is a little more infatuated with her, from the way she makes faces at herself in the reflection of the window to the way she always smiles at the pigeons. And especially the way she waves and smiles back at Knox when they catch each other's eye. Sometimes she makes a face and Knox makes a face back but he can never hold back a smile because he's finally found someone in a (similarly) boring job who still finds a way to have fun and he really had been starting to think that he was the only one. Every day, Knox feels his heart grow lighter and his inner voice reluctantly gets a little more excited.

_Okay, so maybe you do have a little bit of a connection_, it finally concedes.

_Ha, yes! Told you so_, Knox tells himself jubilantly.

* * *

It's Wednesday of the fourth week of knowing The Girl From Across the Street when Knox decides to say something more. He takes a piece of printer paper and finds a black Sharpie in his desk drawer. After deliberate contemplation, he chooses two letters. _Hi_. He writes in the biggest, boldest letters that can fit on the paper, then spends the next half hour until lunch staring at it nervously. When The Girl stands up to water the plants, she looks up to Knox's window and she waves and smiles like usual. Knox waves and smiles, too, then holds up his sign, hoping she can read it from all the way across the street. The Girl squints for a moment before her smile widens and she holds up her index finger in the universal 'wait a second' gesture. She leaves the room for a couple minutes and returns with a sign of her own.

_Hi_.

Knox beams and flips his sign over to write one word on the back, then finds another piece of paper to write the second word.

_I'm Knox. _

The Girl's eyes widen in delight and she quickly writes her own signs.

_I'm Chris. _

Knox doesn't know what to say that can fit onto a sign so he just flips his sign again.

_Hi._

Chris giggles and rolls her eyes, but she says

_Hi_.

back. Knox decides he likes that giggle already, without even hearing it. It makes her entire face light up.

* * *

The next day, when Knox looks up to see Chris, she's holding up two signs. One is from the day before:

_Hi_.

The other is a simple:

:)

Knox makes a sign with a devil face on it, holding it up and making the most evil face he can manage. Chris laughs, and that makes Knox laugh, because Chris already has such a tight grip on his heart.

* * *

The day after that is Friday, and this is significant to Knox. Not because it's a Friday, because that happens 52 times a year. No, because it's the one month mark of knowing Chris, and Knox is kind of sentimental about benchmarks like that. But as it turns out, Chris apparently is too. When Knox catches her eye at lunch, she has a stack of signs tucked under her arm.

_Hey Knox. _

_It's been_

_A month._

_Crazy, huh?_

And for some reason, Chris's message gives Knox a spurt of courage and he scrambles to write another series of signs.

_Can you take _

_Lunch break?_

He gives Chris his best hopeful-and-sweet look. Chris reads the sign and rolls her eyes.

Chris takes a while to write her response, and holds it up two signs at a time.

_Of course. _

_Meet you_

_at Puzzles_

_in 10 min?_

Chris is pointing across the street to clarify - Puzzles is a cafe two buildings down from Knox's and it's a hotspot for all the boring business people who work in the surrounding offices. Knox nods enthusiastically and Chris looks thrilled, mirroring Knox's probably cartoonishly wide smile.

They wave and Chris turns to leave. Knox pauses and watches the door close behind her before grabbing his coat and rushing out the room, jogging as quickly as he can without looking like a deranged Olympic sprinter. He gets to the cafe out of breath, with four minutes to spare. He sits down at a table slows his heart rate, counting the seconds as they go by. His heart is racing and his palms are sweaty and _why_ did he decide to _run_ here? He has just caught his breath when there is a tap on his shoulder. He turns around and his breath catches again because it's _Chris_. She is standing in front of him, looking slightly out of breath but still gorgeous, even more gorgeous when she's two feet away from Knox instead of a whole street width. Both of them are beaming, not quite knowing what to say.

"Hi," Knox finally says, holding his hand out to shake.

Chris giggles - Knox still likes that giggle - and takes the hand warmly.

"Hi."


End file.
